


Kaleidoscope

by Severa



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aether, Angry muzzled drama queen, Captain America: Civil War, FrostIron Reverse Bang, Gen, Infinity Stones, M/M, Mind Stone, Thor: The Dark World, Time Stone, canon AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 07:06:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10736637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severa/pseuds/Severa
Summary: When an angry, dramatic magician decides that he'd rather change time than lose his game, Tony's forced to accept help from the worst of places.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nonexistenz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonexistenz/gifts).



> For the Frostiron Reverse Bang 2017. I was a pinch-hitter, so I didn't have as much time as I'd like to finish this prompt. I wrote as much as I could by the deadline - hopefully I'll have this all wrapped up soon. **Set partway through the events of Captain America: Civil War.**
> 
> PROMPT: The Avengers have a magic wielding villain on their hands, it gives them problems, because the best way to defeat magic is magic itself. Which they don't have. So when the villain does something that really threatens a city and lots of people, they need someone who is a skilled sorcerer to stop it. There either aren’t that many mages in Asgard or they just need the very best or a real powerful one, which yeah, that’s Loki currently rotting in his Asgardian prison. So Thor gets him out, brings him to Midgard, in chains and muzzled, wanting Loki to help out… which surprisingly the latter actually does. But what is even more surprising, is when afterwards Tony wants to keep him, not only because he would be an asset for the team, or because he’s terribly curious about magic, even if that does factor in a lot, but well, he has his personal reasons that count the most. Besides, no one touches his stuff, which yup, he pretty damn fast saw Loki as his and was pissed off enough already that Thor took Loki away in the first place, because again: Loki was his.

** Loki - Svartalfheim **

“I am Loki of Jotunheim… and I bring you a gift.”

With little grace and no kindness, Jane Foster, scholar and scientist of Midgard, was thrown at the feet of Malekith the Accursed, ruler of Svartalfheim. The mighty Thor, Asgard’s golden prince, lay writhing and relieved of a limb, crying pain and cursing gods. Loki of Jotunheim (or perhaps Loki Odinson, prince of Asgard, sorcerer and mage; or Liesmith, Silvertongue, Spear-shaker) stood in the midst of this, lying easily in the face of death. Everything hinged on his presentation. All his titles held power, but each harbored a different reputation. The one he chose had to fit the moment.

Malekith (of the Dark World) was wary. But he did not know Loki, no matter how many realms his name had reached, for he had missed millenia. He knew only that a Jotun stood in front of him, angry and agreeable, asking to watch Asgard burn.

The lie worked. The illusions continued. Jane Foster (woman, warrior, pride of Midgard) played the role of sacrifice and from her the Aether was drawn.

Then the not-so-defeated Thor screamed  _ “Now!”  _ and Loki Liesmith cast away his illusions, returning might upon his brother. Mjolnir’s lightning split the skies.

Their plan would fail. The Aether survived. Loki watched wistfully as the scattered shards came back together, whole and terrible, and he wondered if Thor would’ve heeded the warnings he’d never said.

_ I know this power… I once held two of its kind in hand, Thor, against you… There’s no defeating it. There’s only wielding it, taking control, changing hands…  _

But none of that mattered now as he fell, run through with a blade, condemned to death.

“See you in Hel, monster.”

Strong arms found him and pulled him close.

“No, no, no, no. Ah, you fool, you didn’t listen.” 

Loki (brother of Thor) looked up. Their arguments were forgotten, their battles set aside, and their wrongdoings forgiven.

“I’m a fool.” Yes, he was. “I’m a fool.”

A dying fool. 

“Move,” someone said, and Loki was abruptly reminded of Jane’s existence.

“You can’t- Jane-” Thor tried, but she was already between them. Her touch pricked at his cheeks like shards of ice.

“You’ll be all right.” she promised.

“I’m sorry.” he said to Thor, looking beyond her. “I’m sorry.”

Whatever she thought to do, it was surely too late.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’ll tell father what you did here today.”

Thor’s hand squeezed the back of his neck, comforting and secure. Loki lingered in the feeling.

“I didn’t do it for him.”

He felt a drop of something on his face and tried to focus. Jane’s nose was bleeding, dripping down.

“Jane.” There was worry in Thor’s voice but she was ignoring him, yanking at Loki’s armor. He felt a hand slide beneath leather, cold and painful against his final wound. The sensation seemed distant.

“You-” he hissed, “You and Thor-”

“It’s okay.” she said again, and suddenly he realized her eyes were red. “Stay with me, Loki. It’ll be okay.”

Perhaps it would be.


	2. Chapter One

**Vision - A Hospital**

When the world changed, someone should have noticed.

But the fact of that matter was that no one did. Distracted by their own pettiness and tragedy, the greatest minds of Earth witnessed the event as everyone else did: blindly blinking and shifting in their seats with a strange, fleeting feeling of discord.

For Tony Stark the change was extreme, but his circumstance remained much the same. In one moment he sat in the lobby of a Korean hospital, waiting on an update from Doctor Cho as FRIDAY played music in his ear piece. Rhodey was in surgery after taking the long fall, injured despite the two nose dives that had attempted to save him. Vision was in the gallery watching the results of his first failure.

Tony took a deep breath. He blinked. Things changed.

In the waiting room of an American hospital, he swiped through a doctor’s background report on his watchface. FRIDAY read the important parts to him. There was no music, nor any ambient sounds of a foreign language that he pretended not to know. There was just his research and an empty room, evacuated for the safety of the Avengers.

In the gallery Vision blinked. A pain was blooming behind his eyes, sudden and foreign. He lifted his hand to his temple and realized that his fingers were shaking. Had he ever trembled before? Perhaps it was merely the world trembling around him. Was this a ‘headache,’ or was he malfunctioning? Could he malfunction?

Let it be said again: when the world changed, someone should have noticed.

Some _one_ didn’t notice. But some _thing_ did.

The stone was that thing, with which Vision was one, and it was impervious to ignorance. While others had blinked and accepted the sudden transition of space and time, he’d watched it happen. Dr. Cho was now a lean, determined man, dressed in white and styled with a sharp beard and unkempt hair. Music trivia played in the operating room. They were no longer in Southern Asia; New York City was hours closer to Germany, and he knew somehow they had been rushed there after his mistake at the airport.

Nothing else was different. But nothing about this was the same.

_“How did this happen? I thought you couldn’t miss.”_

Those had been Mr. Stark’s words. Words that haunted Vision now, leaving him to doubt himself. Perhaps he was failing. Perhaps there was something terribly wrong with him (or the stone). And why bring it up now when some _one_ was in the midst of tragedy, someone far more fragile and breakable than himself? True injuries should heal before he presented his own to Mr. Stark.

That was how he found himself in the dim corners of the Avenger’s lab, speaking to FRIDAY under the promise of privacy.

 _“My scan detects no anomalies,”_ she reported. _“You appear to be in perfect health.”_

He stepped down from the scanning platform, rubbing his forearms in a way that could only be described as nervous. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever been nervous before. It was an unsatisfactory conclusion.

“...I see. Thank you.”

 _“Vision,”_ she began, _“What happened in Germany-”_

“Did you reference JARVIS’ backup?”

He hadn’t intended to interrupt her, but there was some relief in it. He didn’t need further analysis of the event.

_“Yes. Your base code remains unchanged. Uncorrupted.”_

“Then I suppose I should pursue the human method of healing.”

_“Vision-”_

“Thank you, FRIDAY.” He bowed his head in a grateful way, wanting to be gone before artificial intelligence attempted to psychoanalyse him. “I will speak to Mr. Stark.”

And so he would. He approached him in his office, thoughtfully utilizing the door, though he (again) bypassed the custom of knocking.

“Mr. Stark-”

He’d hardly said a word before Tony barreled into an answer for a question no one had asked. He did so without looking up from his computer. It didn’t matter how often this happened - Vision always found it somewhat off-putting.  

“He’ll be all right. His doctor’s agreed to work with me on some assisted moving devices - he’s got partial nerve damage, so there’s some hope-”

“I’m glad to hear it. But if I may…”

“-that he’ll be up and moving mostly on his own. I can help him along with it - _we_ can, actually, Vision, I’d like your help.”

“Of course, but-” Vision had the distinct feeling that he was not actually being heard.

“He doesn’t blame you, y’know. Could’ve happened to anyone.”

“I’d actually like to talk about that.”

“FRIDAY sent me the diagnostics, don’t worry. You checked out. Just don’t let the good ol’ doc get a hold of you, he’s too smart for his own good. And-’

“ _Mr. Stark._ ”

At this more forceful response, Tony finally stopped. He took a deep breath and looked up from his screen, scratching his beard and shaking his head.

“Sorry, Viz.”

Vision tilted his head in a relieved manner, understanding. This had been hard on them all. “It’s quite all right.”

There was silence. Tony was waiting in it, kindly not commenting on Vision’s sudden hesitation. For all his preparation, he found himself choking on practiced words. There was no kind way to breach this topic; he’d come to that conclusion immediately. There was neither a logical approach nor an easy transition. Vision would have to present his concerns bluntly - vulnerably, almost, as a child might try and excuse their mistakes.

But he wasn’t a child.

“Something is happening, Mr. Stark. Something I cannot understand.”

“We all make mistakes.”

He held up his hand, uncomfortable in sudden frustration. He felt a great pressure building up in his chest and recognized it as false (as feeling) and shook his head.

“This isn’t about Colonel Rhodes.”

Tony waited patiently. “Well?”

“This is about-”

A phone rang. All of Vision’s gusto left him in one fatal sweep. But Tony still looked at him, ignoring his phone buzzing beside the keyboard, until he finally looked down in dismissal.

“You should probably answer that,” he allowed. Tony glanced at it, starting to mutter something about taking it later, but those words died on his lips.

“Yeah,” he was suddenly grim. Vision looked back up. “I probably should.”

Nick Fury’s name flashed on the caller I.D.


	3. Chapter Two

**Tony Stark - London**

It was an unassuming building on an unassuming street. Initially, Tony saw nothing out of the ordinary. A few cars passed by them. There was some movement in neighboring windows, a couple of kids screaming somewhere; it was a normal, gloomy day in London. Why did Fury think there was anything worth checking out?

_ “The door. _ ”  FRIDAY noted. 

Tony adjusted his sunglasses and nodded, then tugged lightly on the brim of his cap. For all the things he loved about this place, the CCTV was not one of them.

But from here he could see what she had: a single door swung ajar at the address in question, hanging loosely by the hinge. No one else seemed to notice. Maybe they didn’t care.

“Got the cameras?” he muttered into his collar, glancing at his watch. The information displayed on its face was largely unhelpful. 

_ “Yes, boss.” _

A group of tourists passed by him on the street and he stepped into their wake, following them across the crosswalk. 

“Talk to me.”

_ “There’s an energy field around the building. Can’t see a source - it appears to be self sustaining.” _

“Wonderful.” He split away from the group and tucked himself in the alley between two nearby buildings. “Cross reference.”

_ “It’s not unlike Sokovia.” _

Tony cursed under his breath. Magic was the last thing he needed on his plate now.

_ “There are four to six people in the building,” _ FRIDAY continued. Tony heard a familiar hum and looked up to see a semi-inconspicuous drone hovering a few feet above the rooftops, scanning.  _ “It’s unclear.” _

“Show me.”

A pixelated display appeared in the upper right corner of his glasses. It wasn’t able to maintain any sort of clarity - the visualized heat signatures were flickering, distorted in sideways sine waves. 

He couldn’t go in guns blazing. The suit was too much of a red flag. He wasn’t defenseless, but he was at a disadvantage. A disadvantage against an unknown enemy.

“Mr. Stark.”

Tony nearly jumped out of his skin. But he was used to Vision sneaking up on him, as were most people that lived at Avengers HQ. It was a given when your buddy could phase through walls and fly as quietly as a bird.

“What’s your plan?” he asked and Tony blinked away the display on his glasses. 

“Go in and say hello.”

Another group of tourists passed by (distinctly American, which meant they were distinctly familiar with him) and Tony hugged the wall a little closer, pulling at his collar. Vision chameleoned with his surroundings. 

“You ready-  _ what the hell!?” _

There was no time to react or think when he suddenly felt himself being hauled off the ground, two hands under his arms pulling him sky-high without a moment’s warning. He nearly had the breath knocked out of him.

“Vision!” It was more chastising than angry, more confused than concerned. 

The android eyes staring down at him were distraught. Then flickered concern, found somewhere beneath twisting lenses and thought. 

“You do not see it.” he stated.

“See what? The ground, two stories below me?!” Tony didn’t see any hostiles scrambling beneath them. His glasses were askew, hanging off one ear and clinging to the edge of his nose.

Vision stalled. Tony prompted again, more frustrated as he pulled his glasses off his face.

“See  _ what _ ?!”

“The world changing.”

Those monotone words sank into the pit of Tony’s stomach. The thought that Vision was actually failing - malfunctioning, glitching, hurting - was deeply disturbing. It explained what happened on the airfield. It could explain what was happening now. They had to get this over with and get home. Vision needed just as much help as Rhodey.

“Put me down, bud.” he managed to say, looking back to the building beneath them. “It’s all fine. C’mon. Let’s get this over with.”

There was hesitation. But he did comply and Tony was deposited on the staircase at the open door. He put his glasses on again, swallowing past the lump in his throat. He had fixed bigger problems before, he told himself; he could fix Vision, too. 

It was in one jarring moment that he realized how wrong he was.

The display on his lenses didn’t make any sense. The distortion he’d seen before was gone; there were clear mapped lines of the structure in front of him, but nothing matched with what he was seeing. The structural scan was broken into branches of lines at random points, others bent and twisted. The heat signatures inside no longer flickered, instead running up rendered staircases that couldn’t logically exist. 

“Friday.”

He stepped back and there was a hand on his shoulder. Vision, steadying him.

“Mr. Stark?” The sound was almost hopeful. 

_ “Everything is functioning properly, boss.” _

Tony blinked. Nothing changed. He took a deep breath and shook his head, closing his eyes to steel himself for everything he hoped this wasn’t.

“Then render it.”

_ “You got it.” _

His screens stuttered, fuzzed, and refocused. His perception altered. The world changed.

The building wasn’t much of a structure anymore. 

Data doesn’t lie, Tony reminded himself. It’s reality. Scans just compile data to explain a thing, a place, or a person. And hard facts don’t lie.

The reality was that he’d just managed to render his way through an illusion.

“You see it.” Vision said.

“Oh boy, do I see it.”

The building looked like someone had slapped a kaleidoscope on top of it and added a touch of black magic. The outer walls were fractured on mirrored points, replicating endlessly as pieces of them broke apart in chunks of brick. Through the door there was a very disturbing excuse for a fun house, its staircases leading to nowhere and corkscrewing into oblivion. Pieces of the floor were missing. Everything was actively folding and unfolding until all that remained were sheer sheets of mirror. 

Around them it looked like there were panes of glass surrounding the street; groups of people passed through them, apparently blind to what they were seeing. 

“This is a bad trip,” Tony rationalized, “A really, really bad trip.”

“I assure you this is entirely real, Mr. Stark.”

“I know.” He pulled at the face of his watch, unfolding the screen and letting the hidden mechanics unravel and wrap around his hand. It wasn’t long before the concealed Iron Man glove clicked into place and lit at his palm. “Let’s go.”

He thought they could hold their own.

They couldn’t.

Kaecilius - what a name, Tony thought, what a stupid, stupid name - stood on the rooftop with them, titling his head in a curious, condescending way that made Tony furious. There was an amulet hanging around his neck, shaped like an eye and staring at him with an ominous green glow.

“This is not your battle, Mr. Iron Man.”

Tony spit out fragments of a broken tooth and chewed on the taste of blood and iron. Vision was hovering somewhere behind him, oozing whatever organic liquid kept him moving, his cape torn and his eyes tired.

“I choose my battles, Covergirl.” 

The repulsor in his glove whined as it struggled to power up. The worst part of it all was that he  _ had  _ called for the suit and it  _ was _ here - flying around like a moron and desperately trying to find him. FRIDAY hadn’t reported even a single loose bolt on the thing, but the scanners were so scrambled it wasn’t finding him even at a distance of five feet. 

Other men in equally stupid robes came sprinting their way, appearing out of orange portals of destiny, and Vision slowed them down with bolts of energy from his stone.

“Ah...” Kaecilius sighed. “Such power in the hands of such ignorance.”

“Teach me,” Tony welcomed. “Tell me a story. C’mon, get closer.”

It hadn’t been a completely one-sided battle. Just like in the past, Tony’s tech had certain advantages over magic. Their psychedelic energy blasts bounced off his armor plating and repulsor shots usually barreled their way through barriers. Magic Man was sporting an impressive number of burns and bruises on his face and hands (that weren’t weird and self-inflicted).

But Tony’s tech couldn’t stand up to kaleidoscopes and teleporting. Or knives. Sharp, pointy, stabby things that sparked green when they glanced off his glove. Without the suit he was still quite susceptible to things like that.

At least there weren’t guns. Or bombs. 

He grabbed the wrist of a man coming full sprint at him, borrowing his momentum to send him sprawling. He turned on his heel and shot him in the ass with the repulsor, tumbling him towards Vision, who grabbed him by the collar and threw him into one of his cohorts.

By the time Tony spun back around he was already painfully aware that there was nothing else they could do but stand their ground. However, said ground was quickly disappearing. Kaecilius was floating independently, his arms spread in a crucifix, and the building began to tremble beneath Tony’s feet. 

“ _ Kaecilius!” _

The fractal mirrors around them rippled - like water, Tony noted, and he was amazed and confused all at once - as a new challenger appeared with her hands held up in front of her. It was the same weird positioning that tall, dark, and crazy was using; she had similar hooded robes, draped around her in earthy shades of yellow and red.

“You think I would not see it?”

The trembling off the rooftops stabilized as Kaecilius turned his attention to her. A minion tried to pick himself up off the ground and Tony greeted him with a blast to the temple, effectively knocking him out. Vision stood on the body of another woman.

“My future changes, my final moment,  _ and you think I would not see it? _ ”

The hooded woman stalked forward and Kaecilius face twisted in disdain. The face on his amulet began to move like twisted clockwork, revealing a glowing green light embedded within.

“That.” Vision said, but Tony hardly heard him.

“How?” the woman demanded.

She twisted her wrists together and the world around them reacted; the glass panes of energy turned to mirrors, repeating the scene a hundred times over, and the cement beneath their feet began to crack. The image of it repeated in reflections all around them, setting the stage.

“It’s no business of yours.” Kaecilius glared. The purple insignia on his forehead flared and the molten hollows of his eyes stretched further down his face. “But if you’re so interested-”

A beam of green light erupted from his chest, shattering the barrier in front of her in teardrops of glass. She would’ve been done for if not for a twin beam of golden light meeting it head-on: Vision, standing between sorcerers, staring down the world with a stubbornness that made Tony proud.

“Hey, lady-”

In the process of all this her hood had fallen. Tony could see that same purple insignia etched on her brow, creased with her anger.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but you seem to, and-”

She looked at him, as if realizing he was there for the first time.

“Avenger,” she said, cutting him off. “This is not your battle.”

“Lovely, heard that already, look-”

“Duck.”

He did and a spear came rocketing over his head, which she dodged with a simple sidestep. He turned on his knee and shot the feet out from underneath a robed warrior running full sprint through a portal.

“What is this, lady?!” He yelled over the sound of the building shifting down beneath their feet. The supports were failing, just like his sanity.

“Magic!” she called, knife-chopping a man in the throat on her way towards Kaecilius. “You’ve seen it before.”

“It’s not exactly my specialty.”

“Not in this universe, no.”

Kaecilius and Vision circled above them, stuck in their laser beam war. The woman waved her hands and portions of the building moved beneath her feet to give her a stairway towards the battle. Tony scrambled to follow her as those steps dropped away a full pace behind him. 

“You must stop this.” Her voice was even, barely hinting at any physical exertion. Tony’s own was labored. “If I cannot, you must.”

“What?”

He caught up to her on a platform of glass, where Vision was blown away in a pulse of green magic. He came skidding to a stop on the rose window beneath their feet and Tony ran towards him, dodging men with orange whips that sparked in the air. 

The woman moved forward, stepping between them and Kaecilius. Tony lifted Vision off the ground, seeing if he might regain himself. But his eyes were half-lidded, his grip tight on his arms.

“You heard me, Anthony Stark.” she said, pushing her hands forward and the ground began to move. It was a wave of bricks, displacing Kaecilius’ footing, but he held his arms out too and everything froze. They were locked in a power of wills. “You must stop this. Any way you can.”

Tony looked to her, beyond a ring of hostiles that had dragged themselves up to find him again. Vision said something unintelligible. They were cornered.

More than that, they were alone. There were no friends to save them. No Avengers. They were the last of that ragtag group of heroes. 

“...It’s not my specialty,” he said again, fisting his hand as the repulsor whined to life.

“Then find someone to help you.”

The ring of sorcerers advanced, leaping to attack, but Vision sprung to life to throw his body around Tony’s. 

The glass underneath them shattered abruptly and suddenly they were falling, hitting something hard and real in mere seconds. They took the force of it equally, sprawling over cement and shards of glass. People gasped and screamed. Tony groaned.

He opened his eyes to the normal world. There were no robes or magicians, no mirrors or kaleidoscopes. The strangest thing on the street was undoubtedly them.

Slowly, agonizingly, Tony pushed himself up to sit. The armor finally found him, looking down with his emotionless mask.

“Some help you were.”

And then he promptly collapsed.


	4. Chapter Three

It was all because of that one confusing, mind-boggling battle that Tony found himself standing on the balcony of a London apartment, staring blankly at a woman screaming up at the sky.

Up until this point, he had screened approximately twelve of Secretary Ross’ phone calls. It was for efficiency’s sake, really; he knew what Ross would ask and Ross knew that all of Tony’s answers wouldn’t get him anything. He was saving them both time by not answering his phone.

Vision was back in the states with Rhodey, settling him into headquarters. Tony knew that the very last place he should be right now was here. He should be somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, checking out the doom and gloom prison Ross called ‘the Raft’ and trying to talk some sense into his incarcerated friends.

But the magical bullshit that had just come screaming into his life felt more important than his lover’s spat with Captain America. ‘Civil War,’ the media was calling it. They could report on that as much as they liked so long as it distracted them from the bigger problem.

There was an angry magician monologuing about the end of the world and other dimensions while the Avengers attended divorce court.

If only Tony could make sense of it all.

_ “Then find someone to help you,”  _ Magic Bald Lady had said. 

So that was what he was trying to do - find someone to help him. But his selection of people who knew anything about magic were severely limited. There was Wanda, currently incarcerated and sadly uneducated, and Thor, intimately knowledgeable and currently not residing on Earth. They had no way of contacting him - or if they did, Steve had never shared the method. So Tony had turned to the only person he thought might know anything.

Jane Foster.

At the current moment, he couldn’t decide if she was completely insane or if he was hallucinating.

“HEIMDALL!” she yelled, head tipped to the sky. “HEIMDALL, I NEED THOR!”

And then she just shrugged and looked to Tony, inviting him inside for tea as if she weren’t stark raving mad.

* * *

By the grace of whoever the hell Heimdall was, Thor arrived within the hour.

“I told you,” Jane said, laughing.

“Tony Stark!” Thor boomed, entering through the balcony door as the cement outside smoked with remnants of Bifrost energy. “If you’ve sent for me, the situation must be dire indeed.”

Tony couldn’t really think of anything to say. His head still hurt from the fall he’d taken a couple days ago and he just decided to accept everything in stride, setting his cup of coffee down as Jane went to embrace her alien boyfriend.

“Sure, you could say that.” 

Greetings done and stories hastily told, Tony and Thor were soon standing around the kitchen table, watching the recording of Tony’s battle in London. It had been documented by the tech in Tony’s glasses; there was no other physical evidence anywhere, short of the spontaneously combusted building on a street corner.

“I see…” 

“There,” Tony pointed to a paused rendering of Kaecilius, which zoomed in to highlight the amulet on his chest. “It’s a stone. Like Vision’s.”

Thor was grim, as he tended to be in any briefing of a battle. His fingers tapped thoughtfully on his crossed arms.

“And she?” he asked, speaking of the woman fighting alongside Tony.

“Dunno. Haven’t seen her since.” Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, waving away the hologram. “Listen, Cap’s gone AWOL and half of our friends are in prison cells right now. Vision and I are the only ones who know this happened and there’s no patching this up in time-”

“Relationship problems.” Thor surmised. “I understand.”

Tony paused, blinking slowly as he tried to process Thor’s reaction to this. He expected yelling, maybe a bit of neck grabbing and being lifted up off the ground, and Thor’s usual huffing and puffing. But he was dismissing the biggest problem the Avengers had ever had in their history with the words “ _ relationship problems _ .”

“Yeah.” Roll with it, he told himself, deal with it later. “You’re all I got, big guy. Magic ain’t my game.”

“Nor is it mine. But surely we can defeat this villain.” He tilted his chin down in thought, considering something. “I must return to Asgard. This foe will not be felled without someone who understands his methods.”

Tony sighed and took a seat at the table, picking up his projector puck and sliding it in his pocket.

“Meet you in New York?” he asked.

“Aye.”


	5. Chapter Four

**The Ancient One**

Kaecilius had set out to steal a book. 

There were some things that no one was ever meant to read. The Ancient One, and the ones before her, knew this only through their own experiences. But youth always rebelled against wisdom.  Kaecilius sought power, unlimited and dangerous. He sought to borrow energies beyond him, to damn himself and his naive followers. When she denied him, he sought a more willing party. Those answers were hidden in the books she kept locked away from the world.

Perhaps he had expected the librarian to fight. Perhaps he had expected greater wards to protect the knowledge he was taking. Perhaps he had been ready for everything, but surely he couldn’t have expected the door to be open.

But one had - the door that lead to the others, to the Sanctums that shielded Earth from all the evils it hardly knew about. There they kept secrets; there they protected the world.

An alter was erected in the epicenter of it all. Upon it sat a relic from times even The Ancient One couldn’t remember. She knew the pendant as the Eye of Agamotto - others called it a gem, an infinity stone, and the beginning and end of all things. 

Kaecilius had walked into that sacred place with a wicked heart and placed his hand on a power he never should have had.

The Ancient One did not know what he’d seen, then. But she could guess: a tall man with a sharp beard and a red cloak, fighting against illogical magic even as he accepted it. A man who called himself Stephen Strange. A man she was supposed to meet, whom she was supposed to spend her last moment with before blackness. She knew that much from touching the Eye of Agamotto herself. But now when she tried to gaze into the future herself there was only blackness beyond this moment. No kind smiles and pity from a stubborn man. No whispers of the afterlife while the rain fell beyond a hospital window.

Kaecilius had gotten rid of the problem that man presented. He had used the Eye to change time itself.

In this moment she lay defeated on the rose window of a dimension she and Kaecilius had created together. The remnants of London’s sanctum. A battlefield. Her last stand, where she had failed and Dormammu’s mark seared her brow.

Instead of spending her final moment with a man in a red cloak, she had spent it with a sharp man in a red suit. A stark contrast to what she knew was supposed to be. But there was still hope.

Blood bubbled on her lips and the Ancient One wondered if that man would indeed find help.

If, again, Tony Stark could reach beyond his realm and save the world.


	6. Chapter Five

**Tony Stark - Avengers Headquarters, Upstate New York**

When the beam of the Bifrost split open the sky, Tony was midflight and testing the repairs he’d done on the suit. The world had been relatively quiet since he’d come home from London. Captain America and the Winter Solider were nowhere to be found, Natasha had left with the wind, and Rhodey was settling in. He still hadn’t gone to the Raft. He wanted to ask Falcon where his buddy had run off to, but there were bigger threats at hand. Magical, mystical bullshit he had to deal with first.

It took a hard bank to the right to avoid the energy beam that had rudely materialized right in front of him. FRIDAY was quick to list off sudden failures in the suit’s piloting systems as scanners were scrambled, but Tony took the manual approach at landing and dismissed her.

“All right, all right.” The helmet came free, unlocking and retracting back into the shoulder plates. “Calm down, baby.”

_ “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to tell a woman to calm down?”  _

Tony smirked at his AI’s comment, but didn’t have much time to respond before his relatively good day threatened to become disastrously bad. It was easy to see that Thor hadn’t come alone as the lights of the Bifrost faded - it wasn’t a surprise, either, as he had gone to get help - but it was harder to understand why he’d decided to pick  _ that  _ person.

Loki stood much the same as the last time Tony had seen him: muzzled, green, and angry. It was a mirror of the scene from Central Park. As if it were a second later - a moment continued.

He felt a sudden pang of affinity between them as his own anger grew.

“Thor.” It was controlled rage in his voice. Repressed stress. Bubbling anxiety.

“Peace.” Thor pleaded, one hand up in surrender as his other held the chain that attached to Loki’s neck. “Trust me.”

Tony remembered a nuke. An open universe. Phil Coulson.

“Trust me.” he repeated, incredulous. “Trust me? Trust  _ him _ ?”

Loki’s brows narrowed into a fixed angle. But then they relaxed, as if agreeing with this, his head tipping slightly to the side. That only made Tony angrier. But he didn’t notice the repulsors powering up in his palms.

Thor smiled in a way that said  _ please don’t murder anyone  _ and stepped forward. There was still slack on Loki’s restraints.

“He’s a sorcerer. Talented. Powerful. Experienced...” he explained, albeit slowly. 

“Evil.”

“...and willing to aid us.”

The conversation came to a full stop for at least thirty seconds. It was Thor not wanting to break Tony’s thoughts as they came rocketing through his mind at light-speed. It was Tony trying to comprehend what was happening. It was Loki standing across from him like he hadn’t tried to destroy New York or conquer the world; Loki watching him, waiting; Loki standing in chains so casually, like this was all a part of his plan.

“This does not forgive his crimes.” Thor finally said, clearly choosing his words carefully. “‘Tis his path to redemption. Without him, Midgard would’ve fallen to Malekith. Even then, I had to secret him from his cell - but now he comes under the gaze of Odin. Offered penance.”

Loki rolled his eyes in the most grandest of ways, which was entirely missed by his brother. But Tony saw it, as he saw the way he tilted his head back to do so. Down that white column of neck there were scars stretching out from underneath his collar; lightning strikes of red, webbed like veins, not so different than the geometric road rash of Palladium.

Thor glanced back. Loki righted his posture, a smile in his eyes that was serenely innocent. Mockingly innocent, Tony thought.

“After all he did.”

“After all  _ he  _ could do.” Loki said.

Chains suddenly clattered to the ground and the muzzle that should have been on his mouth was instead in his hand. He was smiling, so wickedly sweet, and Thor turned to look at him.

“Excuse the show.” Loki dismissed, waving his hand. All of the restraints that were meant to bind him disappeared. Tony balked, defensive as Thor stood unfazed. “They were for other, more concerned parties before you. But I digress. What all could  _ he  _ do, this Kaecilius fellow, if you don’t stop him?”

Tony eased back into the defensive stance he’d taken. Loki didn’t seem perturbed by it, instead folding his hands behind his back in a very neutral fashion. But Thor had a hand to his hammer, wary as he usually was.

“I don’t need your help.”

“No one ever does. Yet here I stand.”

“Thor, no.”

Thor’s jaw set, drawing his lips in a fine line. He shook his head. Loki watched him.

“Tony, you must. We must.”

It was impossibly hard to describe what he was feeling, but it came out in one strained, desperate sentence. 

“He  _ murdered  _ Phil.”

“And he died for me.”

There was a moment in which Tony might’ve actually considered that responses as a valid argument. A glimmer of light, per se. But it passed when he saw Loki’s eyes drift away in thought, caught in an expression as he clearly tried to remember something. His lips moved in a curious, soundless word:  _ Phil? _

He didn’t remember him. 

Tony’s rage was so white hot that he didn’t even realize he’d repulsor-blasted Loki in the face until after it happened. There was a pounding in his ears as he saw him hit the ground, caught on his elbow and ass, and Thor shouted something in protest before coming between them.

“That son of a bitch.”

“Tony-”

“Forget it!” he yelled it in Thor’s face, perhaps too harshly, “Forget it. Nice try, but we’re not all so chummy with the guy who tried to  _ kill us all. _ ”

He forced himself to leave then. It probably would’ve been a fight if he didn’t and he’d had enough of fighting friends recently. But a part of him was wishing Steve was here, because at least then he’d have some back up.

* * *

“He’s creepy, man.”

Tony looked up from the sink, whose garbage disposal he had in pieces across the countertop, and shrugged. Rhodey was sitting in his wheelchair at the edge of the counter with a cup of coffee in hand. His doctor leaned against the kitchen island with a cup of tea, quietly staring at the (boring) spectacle outside the building.

“He’s not coming in.” Tony decreed.

“Good.” the doctor agreed. 

Loki was seated outside the building, leaning in the corner of two intersecting walls of glass. He had a weathered, leather-bound book in hand. He appeared to be reading, but Tony couldn’t convince himself he wasn’t spying.

“He’s just… hanging out.” Rhodey continued, wary. It was like watching a twisted reality show where one of the arguing parties was about to snap, but the parties were one angry engineer and a mischief God. “Didn’t you tell him no?”

Tony grunted, scooping up more coffee grinds out of the sink. “He’s waiting for Thor, I guess. Crazy ass.”

Rhodey shook his head and continued to stare. If Loki noticed, he was pointedly ignoring all of them. The good doctor started doling out pills into an empty cup in front of him.

“Didn’t the government try to nuke the city because of him?”

“Christ, don’t get him start-”

“You mean the nuke I threw into the scary portal in the sky?”

“- _ ted _ .” Rhodey finished in a sigh.

“Anyone remember that?” Tony continued. He wiped a fleck of god-knows-what off his cheek as he emptied out the last of the clog in the drain. “For fuck’s sake, people, what did this disposal ever do to you? Oh, finally, there. Gross.”

“Well… this makes me question my decision to make house calls.”

Tony laughed as he began to piece his sink back together. “Oh, the great Stephen Strange, reduced to house calls at the price of half a million a month.”

“The price reflect the case.”

“The price reflects the name on the bill. Can’t play the player, doc’. You just wanted a look behind the scenes.”

“And behind the scenes looks like a lot of green and crazy on the doorstep.” Rhodey pointed out, accepting the glass of pills handed to him. “With a touch of psycho-murderer on the side.”

He watched Loki turn a page in his book.

“There’s only one type of green and crazy we need here and…” Tony shook his head, running the water clean down the fixed plumbing. He wiped his hands on a dishrag. “...well, y’know.”

“Yeah.”

Tony stared at the drain, caught in the sight of water running. Washing everything away, cleaning the last of the coffee grounds his friends had left behind.

“Well, enjoy babysitting the psycho.” He dismissed himself, tossing the rag down with his unwanted memories. “I’ve got a suit to fix and a thunder God to knock sense into. Keep your hands out of anything expensive, Doctor.”

“My hands are more expensive than anything here.”

“The insurance on them, maybe,” Tony called back, walking down the hall towards his lab. 

Thor had split away with Vision some time ago. Whatever it was they were talking about, Tony wasn’t privy too, but he knew Vision liked the idea of Loki even less than he did. Something about probability calculations and statistical analysis. He didn’t know the numbers himself, but Vision had his backing regardless.

He descended a flight of stairs into the basement of headquarters, where he had built himself a personal laboratory much like his (now-destroyed) garage back in Malibu. Instead of cars lining the far wall there were Iron Man suits, the space between them and the glass door littered with semi-organized tables and a unfinished projects. A large projection space lay empty in the epicenter of the room, near a dias for suit building, testing and repair. The bots and their charging pads were on the opposite wall. The ceiling had a number of mechanical arms waiting for use, as well a small excuse for a sun roof. It was really just a hatch in the ground outside of headquarters.

A hatch that was suspiciously open.

When the door opened Tony snatched his binary augmented retro framing glasses (B.A.R.F for short; terrible name) off a table and put them on, grabbing for an Iron Man gauntlet with his other hand. While his therapy glasses had one primary use, they, like everything else, could act as a heads up display. He found himself using them for that purpose more than anything else (as he had in London), since they had the convenient direct-connect to his brain.

The gauntlet was in place and powering on by the time he saw Loki inspecting the shell of an Iron Man suit in the corner of the room.

“The fuck do you think you’re doing?”

FRIDAY fed him security footage without being asked. The image of Loki sitting outside headquarters remained, but a scan revealed no trace of a heat signature. The illusion seemed to waver the longer Tony looked at it.

“My brother told me of your squabble.” Loki was infuriatingly nonchalant, his attention still on the suit rather than the man holding a repulsor at his back. “Your…” Tony could hear the smile. “... _ relationship problems. _ ”

“I swear to Thor, I’ll knock you on your ass again.”

“What was it you said?” he asked, waiting until the perfect moment to throw a glance over his shoulder. “Performance issues?”

The repulsor blast managed to shatter the illusion of Loki and Tony cursed himself. 

“Scan, Friday, always scan!”

By the time he spun around another Loki was already an arm’s distance away from him, knife in hand.

_ “He’s real.”  _ FRIDAY’s voice echoed in the workshop.

“Yup, uh, I can see the pointy knife. Thanks for that.”

Loki’s lips were upturned in a smirk and he spared the ceiling a glance. But instead of threats, which Tony fully expected, the response he got when Loki looked back at him threw him completely off guard.

“The voice has changed.”

Tony stared. Those words repeated in his head a couple of times, like his thought process had stalled completely, but there was mercy in the fact that Loki continued to speak. He even took a step back, twirling his blade in between his fingers rather than stabbing him in this very stupidly vulnerable moment.

“It was male, before.” he said thoughtfully. “More polite.”

_ “You don’t even know me.” _

“Indeed I don’t.”

“What?” Tony managed, arm falling slightly.

“Are you deaf or just dull?” Loki asked, pulling a manila envelope out of thin air. He was dressed differently than the illusion on the doorstep, with less armor and more leather, the edges of his clothes cut to squares rather than points. The smallest triangle of gold and green emblazoned his chest instead of the sweeping loop from before, and his gloves left the fingers exposed, but hooked between his thumb and forefinger in a nonsense, palm-covering fashion. “You’ve changed the voice of your… whatever it is.”

_ “Artificial Intelligence. And what are you supposed to be, exactly?” _

“A God.” 

There was a moment of silence in which Tony thought FRIDAY might be malfunctioning, or for once was at a loss for words, but then a holographic screen flickered to life beside them. A very angry Hulk starred in this roll of security footage, flinging a battered Loki around like a rag doll.

_ “Puny God,”  _ the recording said. Loki scowled.

Tony imagined that the feeling in his chest was how parents felt proud about their children. He chuckled and gathered himself, holding his hand steady and wagging his fingers as the gauntlet’s palm slowly began to light.

“Get out,” he warned.

Loki turned his attention away from the screen and it promptly disappeared. 

“As you wish,” he was surprisingly agreeable, albeit sour. “On one condition.”

“Yeah, you’re not in the position to bargain.”

“I’m always in a position to bargain.” His sourness was replaced by a politician’s smile. He twirled the knife in his hand and used it to cut open the envelope he’d conjured earlier. “Consider the contents of this before refusing my brother’s offer.”

Tony stared at the envelope now presented to him. The knife in Loki’s hand disappeared, its use spent in a surprisingly non-stabbing fashion.

“Why the hell do you think I’ll trust you?” He didn’t take the envelope. Pet peeves aside, he didn’t trust it.

“I don’t.” Realizing that his offer wasn’t going to be taken, Loki placed it on a table beside them. Some papers slid to poke out the open top, catching Tony’s attention.  “I trust you’ll find the contents convincing.”

He caught a glance of a name - _Coulson, Phillip_  - and his entire body tensed.

“What the hell do you-”

But before he had the time to finish his sentence, Loki had disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we reach the chapter based on the artwork prompt I was given. See Nonexistenz's work on AO3.
> 
> ART: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10601130
> 
> 8.3.2017 - ON HIATUS

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Art] Don't Touch My Stuff](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10601130) by [Nonexistenz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonexistenz/pseuds/Nonexistenz)




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